Jonathan Ive

What's happening the next few weeks: * "Designing the Future: 3 Directions for the New Millennium," a show featuring the work of Jonathan Ive, vice president of industrial design for Apple Computers; Maya Lin, the architect who designed the Vietnam War Memorial; and Karim Rashid, a furniture and fashion designer, runs Nov. 17-March 26. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Wednesday evenings until 8:45. $8; $5 students and seniors.

$250,000 buys a lot exotic curb candy. This kind of cash will net a nice Lamborghini Gallardo. Perhaps an Aston Martin DB9 Volante. A Ferrari 458 Italia is even possible. Or, $250,000 can buy a hand-built pickup truck with gobs more exclusivity than these three, and a cloak of anonymity they don't offer. Icon, the Chatsworth-based shop known for custom replica Broncos, FJ Cruisers and CJ-style Jeeps, unveiled such a truck Tuesday at the 2013 SEMA show in Las Vegas. PHOTOS: Icon's new Thriftmaster pickup Dubbed the Thriftmaster, the truck is a modern -- and powerful -- interpretation of a postwar icon.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo's Marissa Mayer just landed some plum talent from Silicon Valley's design guru: Apple. "I'm happy to join Yahoo! today as Principal Designer. Marissa Ann Louie + Marissa Ann Mayer = Yahoo! - at Yahoo! HQ,” former Apple designer Marissa Louie wrote in a Facebook post. Louie has an impressive track record as a designer at Apple, Ness and elsewhere. Her jump to Yahoo signals the dramatic rise of the designer in Silicon Valley. (Think Jony Ive .) Inspired by Apple, designers -- not engineers -- are the ones with the all-important job of making technology smart, simple to use and elegant.

Now that second-quarter earnings and Apple's massive bond offering are behind us, speculation has shifted back to products. And the big product that has tongues wagging is some reportedly radical changes to the operating system that powers the company's iPhones and iPads. Much of the drama surrounds the fact that Jonathan Ive, Apple's longtime hardware design guru, has also been placed in charge of software design as well. That happened last fall following a management shakeup. Ive is now s enior vice president of i ndustrial design.

First, Apple's Jonny Ive, the man credited with being the design genius behind the company's products, got a knighthood. That's Sir Jonny Ive, thank you very much. Now the British designer has received another honor from his home country: a Blue Peter badge. To which U.S. readers may ask: "What's that?" QUIZ: Test y our Apple knowledge Good question. "Blue Peter" is a children's TV show that has been running in Britain for about 50 years. The badge is presented to people for inspiring kids.

Apple Inc. is so secretive about its unreleased phones, tablets, computers and -- potentially -- TVs, that you could almost say that the phrase "notoriously secretive" has become an unofficial Apple slogan. But it's not quite true that Apple keeps everything in a lockbox. The flip side of the company's obsession with secrecy is that its leaders have learned how to use the fact vacuum to their advantage. While the company never discloses product details ahead of time, its executives do drop not-too-subtle hints about upcoming gadgets, sparking weeks of speculation until the next morsel is dropped.

SAN FRANCISCO - In the biggest management shake-up since Tim Cook took the helm, Apple has ousted two top executives blamed for a pair of embarrassing missteps. Apple Inc. said Scott Forstall, its longtime executive and a protege of co-founder Steve Jobs, was leaving the company. As head of the mobile software division, Forstall oversaw the iOS operating system that runs the best-selling iPhone and iPad that together account for the bulk of Apple's sales. But the 15-year Apple veteran also was responsible for one of the company's highest-profile gaffes: replacing Google Inc.'s maps with Apple's own faulty mapping software.

Chief Executive Tim Cook likes to say Apple Inc. has an advantage over competitors because it does three things well: hardware, software and services. For much of the year, speculation about new hardware gets the lion's share of attention from obsessive Apple fans. But on Monday, software and services will be in the spotlight as Apple kicks off its weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. On the software side, the company is expected to unveil iOS 7, a redesigned version of its mobile operating system.

Candles flickered outside Apple stores, where bouquets of flowers encircled photos of Steve Jobs. Thousands of online mourners replaced their Facebook photos with the black Apple logo. And tributes flooded in from world leaders and industry pillars, including Apple's most bitter rivals. The outpouring of sentiment -- the kind usually reserved for pop culture icons like John Lennon or Michael Jackson -- was unprecedented for a corporate executive. Why so much adoration for Jobs?